Illicit organ trade, in Nigeria and elsewhere

 Here's an article about organ (kidney) trafficking, by a Nigerian physician, which has a good account of the background of the Nigerian citizen who was convicted in England of organ trafficking. (It's in an interesting looking journal that I hadn't previously heard of...)

Akpen, Nater Paul. "The illicit Organ Trade: Biographical, Anatomical, Economic and Legal Aspects." Journal of Academics Stand Against Poverty 6, no. 1 (2025): 86-102. 

Abstract:"A kidney can cost up to $ 200,000. Humans have two kidneys but normally require just one to live. Individuals can donate one to relatives for altruistic reasons. But to pay $200,000 - or any other amount - to obtain a kidney, no country in the world allows that. Except for Iran. This global blanket ban has pushed the trade of organs underground and it now ranks as the fourth most lucrative illegal activity – behind only drugs, arms, and human trafficking. Rising incidence of end-stage kidney disease will increase demand for replacement kidneys, both gifted and bought. This essay studies this trade using two case studies, one of a Nigerian leading legislator arrested in the UK for getting a kidney for his daughter and another on kidney demand in Iran where trade in organs is permitted. The global value of the trade is studied, and literature gaps are discussed. The inadequacies of the current system are highlighted and improvements suggested, based on best practices around the world."

 

And here's the concluding paragraph:

"Organ trade should be legalized. Governments, in collaboration with professional medical bodies, should be the sole regulator. For deceased donations, there should be an opt out system that would be set in place after a sweeping enlightenment campaign on the system and the need for organs. There should be a fixed uniform national pay to donors (or their next of kins). There should be no cross-border trade. "

 

The international black market in stolen smartphones

Modern "pick pockets" are now  mounted on ebikes and swiping smartphones...

 The NYT has the story:

London Became a Global Hub for Phone Theft. Now We Know Why.
About 80,000 phones were stolen in the British capital last year. The police are finally discovering where many of them went.  By Lizzie Dearden and Amelia Nierenberg

" Increasingly brazen thieves, often masked and on e-bikes, have become adept at snatching phones from residents and tourists. A record 80,000 phones were stolen in the city last year, according to the police, giving London an undesirable reputation as a European capital for the crime.

...

"But last December, they got an intriguing lead from a woman who had used “Find My iPhone” to track her device to a warehouse near Heathrow Airport. Arriving there on Christmas Eve, officers found boxes bound for Hong Kong. They were labeled as batteries but contained almost 1,000 stolen iPhones.

...

"Some phones are reset and sold to new users in Britain. But many are shipped to China and Algeria as part of a “local-to-global criminal business model,” the police said, adding that in China, the newest phones could be sold for up to $5,000, generating huge profits for the criminals involved.
"
Joss Wright, an associate professor at the University of Oxford who specializes in cybersecurity, said that it is easier to use stolen British phones in China than elsewhere because many of the country’s network providers do not subscribe to an international blacklist that bars devices that have been reported stolen. 

...

"Sgt. Matt Chantry, one of the leaders of the raid last month, said in an interview that thieves on e-bikes were “a real problem.” They mount sidewalks and swipe phones from people’s hands at high speed, he said, while making themselves “unidentifiable” by wearing balaclavas and hoods. “How do you police that?” he asked.

"Attempting to chase them on London’s sometimes gridlocked streets is “high-risk,” he said, endangering pedestrians, other drivers and the offender. Ultimately, he said, the police had to ask, is the risk of a fatality worth it for a cellphone? 

...

"But the police are also hoping users will become more savvy about their personal security. Even as smartphones have become more advanced and valuable, many people’s handling of them has become less protective. For the modern phone thief, a classic mark is a pedestrian walking close to the curb, deeply absorbed by the content on a cell screen — a map, a text, a video.

“You wouldn’t count your money on the street,” said Lawrence Sherman, an emeritus criminology professor at the University of Cambridge. “But when the phone is worth £1,000, it’s like pulling £1,000 out of your wallet and looking at it as you walk.” 

The black market in stolen homing pigeons

 Below are some excerpts from a long interesting story in the Washington Post, about how a boom in pigeon racing in China led to a rash of pigeon thefts in Belgium, and how problems in identifying recovered pigeons can (probably) be expeditiously addressed.

the Pigeon Heist.  How million-dollar pigeons became the target of organized crime.  By Kevin Sieff

"Beginning in around 2019, wealthy Chinese industrialists started spending millions on Belgian pigeons. That year, a pigeon named Armando sold for $1.4 million at an auction outside Brussels. In 2020, another bird named New Kim sold for $1.9 million. Pigeon races in major Chinese cities became opulent symbols of China’s economic boom, with purses over $100 million — exceeding most of the world’s major sports.

...

" a rash of pigeon thefts ... swept through Belgium and the Netherlands in 2024 and 2025. Dozens of pigeon lofts were raided; hundreds of pigeons were taken. “A crisis,” said the Belgian pigeon fanciers’ association in an alert to its members. 

...

"By 2023, China’s Ministry of Public Security began prosecuting cases of illegal gambling on pigeons. Last September, Ding Tao, the director of the Tengzhou Pigeon Association in a city about 350 miles south of Beijing, admonished his fellow pigeon enthusiasts in a speech, published by the city’s sports bureau, for engaging in “illegal profit-making activities.” 

...

"The thefts across Belgium were often focused on a particular commodity, police said. One gang exclusively took racing bicycles. Another targeted construction cranes. One stole dozens of expensive trumpets.

"The investigators knew how Chinese demand had led to the skyrocketing value of pigeons. It seemed possible that European organized crime groups could target the birds with an intention to resell them on the black market in Asia, allowing them to skirt the Chinese government’s scrutiny.

,,,

"The rescued pigeons were transported in cages to a loft run by the Belgian pigeon association outside Brussels. Their identification rings had been cut off. The police planned DNA tests to confirm which birds were registered with which owners. Victims of the thefts were invited to see if they could identify their birds.

 ...

 "Many of the recovered birds have still not been matched to their owners, most likely because they were taken in thefts not recorded by the Belgian police.

"It is increasingly likely, investigators say, that there will be only one way to reunite the birds to their owners: They will open the cages and hope that the birds still remember how to fly home."

Regulating markets for antiquities, to more effectively compete with black markets (Kremer and Wilkening in JEP)

 Bans on illegally recovering, selling, and exporting archeological antiquities often result in black markets.  Michael Kremer and Tom Wilkening explore how markets might be regulated to be more effective.

Kremer, Michael, and Tom Wilkening. 2025. "Protecting Antiquities: A Role for Long-Term Leases?" Journal of Economic Perspectives 39 (3): 127–48. 

Abstract: In order to preserve cultural patrimony for future generations, most countries ban exports of antiquities. However, this may drive trade underground, particularly in low-income and low-state capacity contexts, and cause irreversible damage to cultural heritage. We argue that complementing export bans with fixed-duration, long-term leases can strengthen incentives for maintenance and revelation of antiquities, while preserving cultural patrimony. Allowing only leases rather than sales limits potential losses from corrupt deals between foreign collectors and government officials. Standardized contracts with set lease lengths, insurance requirements, and care requirements may also be necessary to limit corruption and establish a well-functioning market.

There's a gray market for diabetes supplies

 High prices and inadequate medical insurance force some patients to get their diabetes monitoring supplies second hand. Here's a suggestion for some redesign...

Medpage has the story:

The Diabetic Supplies Gray Market Is Ripe for Disruption by Jacob Murphy 

""CA$H 4 SEALED & UNEXPIRED DIABETIC TEST STRIPS -- CALL NOW."

This message, printed in black on a neon yellow poster board, hangs just outside the $1.1 billion Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children's Center at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The sign represents a peculiar offshoot of American healthcare: the diabetic supplies gray market. Here, blood glucose test strips are exchanged within an informal network.

This market operates through handwritten signs and websites like QuickCash4TestStrips.com, often flourishing in areas with high rates of poverty and uninsured patients. How does it work? Insured patients obtain excess test strips at little personal cost through insurance, then sell them to reseller companies. These companies profit by selling the strips below original retail prices, which far exceed manufacturing costs, to uninsured individuals. And, surprisingly, this is all legal.

...

"Diabetes costs have steadily risen to thousands of dollars annuallyopens in a new tab or window for individuals. These expenses can be even higher for the 1.5 million diabetic Americans without health insurance, especially if they experience diabetes-related complications. Without proper monitoring, these individuals face life-threatening risks of ketoacidosis, hypoglycemia, and long-term complications including vision loss, kidney failure, and amputations. In the end, they're left with a tough choice: turn to an unregulated "gray" market or potentially face major health complications and financial consequences. 

...

"[ academic medical centers] should establish formal redistribution programs that incentivize donations of excess diabetic supplies. These programs would provide safer alternatives to unregulated gray market exchanges, leveraging institutional scale to deliver essential supplies at minimal or no cost to those most in need.

"Incentives to donors could include copay waivers for downstream care, free diabetes check-ups such as eye and foot exams, or connections to food assistance programs. Conditional cash transfers could also serve as effective motivators, particularly for the lowest-income donors. Additionally, centers could help patients transition from test strips to continuous glucose monitors "

Kidney transplant black market in Myanmar

 BBC Burma has the story (I guess they haven't updated their country name...no doubt they still refer to the Gulf of Mexico, too:) 

The story is about Burmese people purchasing a kidney from other Burmese people, after which they both travel to India for the surgeries, which involves pretending to be relatives.

Myanmar villagers reveal 'desperate' illegal kidney sales, BBC Burmese 

"Zeya, whose name has been changed to conceal his identity, knew of local people who had sold one of their kidneys. "They looked healthy to me," he says. So he started asking around.

"He is one of eight people in the area who told BBC Burmese they had sold a kidney by travelling to India.

...

"Buying or selling human organs is illegal in both Myanmar and India, but Zeya says he soon found a man he describes as a "broker".

"He says the man arranged medical tests and, a few weeks later, told him a potential recipient - a Burmese woman - had been found, and that both of them could travel to India for the surgery.

"In India, if the donor and recipient are not close relatives, they must demonstrate that the motive is altruistic and explain the relationship between them.

...

"He says the broker made it appear as if he was donating to someone he was related to by marriage: "Someone who is not a blood relative, but a distant relative".

...

Zeya says he was told he would receive 7.5m Myanmar kyats. This has been worth somewhere between $1,700 and $2,700 over the past couple of years

...

" he flew to northern India for the operation and it took place in a large hospital. ... he stayed in hospital for a week afterwards.

...

"The BBC last heard from Zeya several months after his surgery.

"I was able to settle my debts and bought a plot of land," he said.

But he said he couldn't afford to build a house and had not been able to construct one while recovering from the surgery. He said he had been suffering from back pain.

"I have to restart working soon. If the side effects strike again, I have to deal with it. I have no regrets about it," he added.

He said he stayed in touch with the recipient for a while, and she had told him she was in good health with his kidney.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, she told the BBC she paid 100m kyats (between around $22,000 and $35,000 in recent years) in total. She denied that documents were forged, maintaining that Zeya was her relative."

 

HT: Colin Rowat

###########

Earlier, also on the Myanmar/India black market

Thursday, December 21, 2023

Cash for kidneys report in the Telegraph

The dark-ship black market for sanctioned oil

 Here's a paper that fills in the holes left in ship transport logs when they turn off their transponders. That happens a lot--more than 40% of global seaborn oil seems to be in the black market avoiding sanctions.

The (Un)Intended Consequences of Oil Sanctions Through the Dark Shipping of Sanctioned Oil
Xiwen Bai, Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, Yiliang Li, Le Xu & Francesco Zanetti, NBER Working Paper 33486  DOI 10.3386/w33486  February 2025

Abstract: We examine the rise of dark shipping—oil tankers disabling AIS transceivers to evade detection—amid Western sanctions on Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, and Russia. Using a machine learning-based ship clustering model, we track dark-shipped crude oil trade flows worldwide and detect unauthorized ship-to-ship transfers. From 2017 to 2023, dark ships transported an estimated 7.8 million metric tons of crude oil monthly—43% of global seaborne crude exports—with China absorbing 15%. These sanctioned flows offset recorded declines in global oil exports but create distinct economic shifts. The U.S., a net oil exporter, faces lower oil prices but benefits from cheaper Chinese imports, driving deflationary growth. The EU, a net importer, contends with rising energy costs yet gains from Chinese demand, fueling inflationary expansion. China, leveraging discounted oil, boosts industrial output, propagating global economic shocks. Our findings expose dark shipping's central role in reshaping oil markets and macroeconomic dynamics."

 

"from 2017 to 2023, an average of 7.8 million metric tons of crude oil per month were exported via dark ships from Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and Russia, accounting for approximately 43% of total world seaborne crude oil exports recorded in UN Comtrade data.  

...

"China is the largest importer of crude oil transported by dark ships from sanctioned countries. Between 2017 and 2023, China’s imports exceeded 97 million metric tons, accounting for 15% of total sanctioned oil exports. Other notable importers include South Korea, India, Egypt, Turkey, and Russia itself."

US Ranks Highest in Global Overdose Deaths

 Here's a sobering news article from JAMA:
US Ranks Highest in Global Overdose Deaths by Samantha Anderer,
JAMA. February 7, 2025. doi:10.1001/jama.2025.0240
 

"A recent Commonwealth Fund report confirmed that the US overdose death rate remains far higher than in any other country. In 2022, the US overdose rate was 324 deaths per 1 million people, 1.5 times greater than in Scotland, the second-ranked nation with 219 deaths per million people. Although Scotland saw fewer deaths in 2022 than in previous years, rates in the US continued to climb, up about 53% from 2019. For the third consecutive year, drug overdoses claimed more than 100 000 lives in the US, according to provisional 2023 data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The Commonwealth Fund report cited inadequate investment in treatment and prevention strategies as a major contributor to the discrepancy between the US and the rest of the globe. Only 11% of people in the US diagnosed with opioid use disorder reported receiving substitution therapy in 2020 compared with 87% in France and 51% in Scotland. "

#########

Here's the report:

U.S. Overdose Deaths Remain Higher Than in Other Countries — Trend-Tracking and Harm-Reduction Policies Could Help by Evan D. Gumas

"Provisional data show that drug overdoses in the United States claimed more than 100,000 lives for a third consecutive year in 2023 — a more than 50 percent jump since 2019. By a substantial margin, the U.S. has the highest rate of overdose deaths in the world, followed by Puerto Rico — a U.S. territory. And while Scotland and Canada, the second- and third-ranked countries, saw decreases from 2021 to 2022, rates in the U.S. have remained high. Our analysis, using the latest mortality data from 2022, compares the U.S. overdose rate — 324 deaths per 1 million people, or almost 108,000 deaths in 2022 — to dozens of countries from across the globe and finds that the U.S. unequivocally has the highest rate of overdose deaths in the world.

The U.S. can learn from other countries by tracking emerging trends and adopting comprehensive approaches to prevention and treatment that prioritize public health and harm reduction.

 

 Source: Evan D. Gumas, “U.S. Overdose Deaths Remain Higher Than in Other Countries — Trend-Tracking and Harm-Reduction Policies Could Help,” To the Point (blog), Commonwealth Fund, Jan. 9, 2025. https://doi.org/10.26099/ppdk-qy10